Long time readers of this site, which has existed since December 1995 in a pre-Sciencebase form, will know my tagline as Songs, Snaps, Science, but also that I cover a lot of music and arty stuff as well as a load of science. But, jumping up on my soapbox I have to ask…
Gameshow hosts often sneer when a contestant gives a wrong answer to a theatrical or musical question, say, but there’s never that response if they don’t get a science or maths question right.
Similarly, high-brow interviewers often giggle like school kids if they don’t understand the science feature they’re running and make some remark about never being any good at science.
Why do so many humanities people in the media and elsewhere feel that not knowing sciencey stuff is something to be proud of? Whatever happened to aspiring to have a rounded education? Being a polymath was where it’s at when you look at endless famous names of history. Leonardo was both artist and inventor and scientist. Borodin was a chemist. There are many more…
A huge proportion of the scientific “world” love the arts and humanities and knows a lot about them. So where are the classicists who have an appreciation for the flipside of the coin of knowledge?
Anyway, illegitimi non carborundum.